First question, none of you like Washington, can you name a federal program that you like, one that you don't like. Hutchison and Perry argued over highway funding--are we getting back 76 cents per each dollar, Perry says 70 cents. Medina likes military but says the federal gov't is not
I must have missed the debut of Perry’s second ad, which aired on the day of the national championship game. The title is “Working for Us.” The message is entirely positive, unlike Hutchison’s ads. I like this ad better than Perry’s first one. (I gave the “Washington is Broken” ad
The following two paragraphs are the conclusion of an article that appeared in the Pasadena Citizen about an appearance by Kay Bailey Hutchison yesterday in which she discussed her transportation plan. The article appears on the Hutchison campaign web site: When asked about paying for transportation improvements, she was less
The Quorum Report’s Daily Buzz says that the Perry campaign sent out a Mike Baselice poll to supporters via e-mail, with no supporting information, that showed: Perry 49% Hutchison 36% Medina 5% That sounds reasonable to me. The November Texas Tribune/UT poll had Perry 42%, Hutchison 30%, Media 7%. This
Hutchison unveiled her transportation policy today in Tyler. She spoke at the local Chamber of Commerce. Appearing with her were the mayor, the sheriff, and Congressman Louis Gohmert. Perry has been getting endorsements from just about all the trade associations, but Hutchison has endorsements from local officials. Later, she appeared
Ross Ramsey, writing in the Texas Tribune today, has a story that the Hutchison campaign asked that I not be allowed to be a panelist on the gubernatorial debate on the grounds that KERA, the Dallas PBS station that is hosting the debate, and NPR both have policies against opinion
The website ProPublica has a report on the TARP bailout that suggests the mammoth lending program will not turn out to be a fiasco for the taxpayers after all: The government’s best estimate, released December 10, is that the bailouts of AIG and the auto companies will ultimately
The title is “Texas Tough.” The spot opens with Hutchison in an ag setting, shaking hands with farm and ranch types. Then she appears standing at a microphone. Behind her four people are arrayed, with a fifth barely visible in the shadows. This is the unhappiest-looking collection of people I
There never was any doubt that Bill White was running for governor, and for that matter there wasn’t much doubt that he wanted to run for governor even when he was running for the Senate. Perry is now fighting a two-front war. A general election race against a Democrat will
Contrary to my previous post, the Hutchison campaign did get earned media from her appearance in San Antonio. (I have serious deficiencies as a Web researcher.) I will have posted a link below. Actually, what I said in that earlier post was that I had checked the Express-News and KENS
Hutchison made stops yesterday in Houston and San Antonio to tout her education proposals. I went to the San Antonio event. It was held in the library of Horace Mann, a middle school on the near northwest side. Horace Mann is a single-sex campus for girls, most of them African-American
Rick Perry’s record nine years in the Governor’s Mansion have made the office more powerful than ever before. That’s why we need term limits.
By delaying her decision about leaving the Senate, she damaged her candidacy in an unexpected way. Once Bill White recognized that there would be no Senate vacancy, he switched to the governor’s race. In doing so, he instantly won the loyalty of Democrats across Texas. Had Hutchison resigned her seat,
This was today’s daily blast from Joe Pounder of the Hutchison campaign: “When we should be focused on creating jobs and keeping our state’s economy strong, Rick Perry is openly promising higher gas taxes. That’s less money in Texans’ pockets and more money for TxDOT to waste on Perry pet
I had a conversation with John Sharp this afternoon. Sharp said that White’s first preference has always been to run for governor. What had kept him out of the governor’s race was the prospect that Hutchison would win the primary, leaving White to face the most popular figure in Texas
Swartz on the scene at City Hall: Upstairs at City Hall at 4:15 today, the local news media was treated to a classic performance by our mayor/gubernatorial candidate, Bill White. The answer to the question that has been swirling through political circles since Kay Bailey Hutchison announced that she wouldn’t
The word is that a race for governor is “in play,” which I take to mean that White is keeping his options open, which is not really news. The bad blood between Rick and Kay is only going to get worse. Had Hutchison resigned in the fall, which was her
Hutchison is shown sitting in a living room, or perhaps a hotel suite. She is wearing a white blouse with a dark vest, brown or perhaps purple. A lamp is lit on a desk behind her left shoulder. In the foreground is a built-in segment of a bookcase. A red
It opens with an angled shot looking upward at the U.S. Capitol dome, through trees. Over it is superimposed a red line, as if to suggest a graph of an economic indicator, and general direction is down. The effect is very busy without being distracting; there’s a lot going on
This undated letter from former state party chairman George Strake Jr. was forwarded to me by a Perry loyalist. Dear Friend, As someone who helped build our Republican Majority in Texas since the days Democrats dominated every statewide office and both houses of the legislature, and as someone who has
Today’s daily message from the Hutchison campaign is that Perry’s record in education is woefully weak: stagnant test scores, rising dropout rates, a shortage of math and science teachers that keeps getting worse, inadequate state funding, several hundred million dollars down the drain for an ideologically and politically motivated plan
Earlier this afternoon, I went to KVUE, the Belo station in Austin, to tape a TV interview with WFAA (Dallas) reporter Brad Watson about the governor’s race. Afterward, I learned that Kay Bailey Hutchison had said that she wouldn’t resign her seat until after the March 2 Republican primary. Watson
Yes, good news: She’s only down by 11 points in today’s Rasmussen poll, compared to 12 points in the recent UT/Texas Tribune poll. Perry, meanwhile, is only four points (the same number Medina is getting) short of 50%. The temptation is to say that the race is over, but I’m
Who is best situated to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012? Gallup (October 31-November) finds that 71% of Republicans would “seriously consider” supporting Huckabee, with Romney and Palin at 65% each. Other names who show up on GOP presidential polls include Pawlenty, Gingrich, Giuliani, Barbour, Jindal, and Jeb Bush,
The Morning News’ Trailblazer blog reported Wednesday that Rick Perry had said at a news conference in Dallas that he was a stronger conservative than his gubernatorial opponent. This was fodder for Republican primary voters, but I think it had another purpose. It was a baited hook designed
Is this good or bad? This is a guy who left office with a 19% approval rating. The report comes from the NBC affiliate for the Metroplex: The battle for conservative credibility in the GOP race for governor just got interesting. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, an outspoken critic of
This was the Hutchison campaign’s daily blast at Perry for today: Rick Perry continues to avoid critical questions about the Trans-Texas Corridor. While he may think his proposal to seize nearly 600,000 acres of private property is dead and a settled matter, the question for some has turned to how
The Morning News story that Perry’s chairman of the Alcoholic Beverage Commission is soliciting funds from restaurant owners in amounts ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 is the latest in a series of stories about Perry and his appointees. One of the worst things in the story is the
I have already received a couple of calls from friends who wanted to be sure that I noticed the Dew's op-ed piece in today's Statesman about how Texas balanced its budget. His salient characteristic is on full display here: There is no depth of cravenness so low that
The Hutchison campaign today went on red alert against push polling, or if you prefer a more polite term, message testing, by the Perry campaign. I don’t know the extent of the practice, but these were some of the messages being tested, according to sources with the Hutchison campaign. Let
I don't mean quit the Senate. I mean quit talking about when she is going to quit the Senate. She provided more fodder for the Perry campaign yesterday by going on talk radio in Dallas (Mark Davis) and hemming and hawing all over the place. This is from today's Perry
Of all the sniping that has gone on between the Perry and Hutchison campaigns, the skirmish that I find to be the most dismaying—and the worst for Texas—is the Perry campaign’s attack on Hutchison for her success in getting funding for designated federal projects in the state, popularly (or unpopularly)
This morning, Mark Miner of the Perry campaign touts the list of endorsements the governor has received under this headline: Gov. Perry’s Endorsements Represent Diverse, Statewide Support • Texas Association of Realtors • Texas Chemical Council • Texas Home School Coalition PAC • T. Boone Pickens, Energy Entrepreneur • Texas
A commenter to my blog post, “More on the Perry Agenda,” suggests that because of Perry’s support for the Trans-Texas Corridor, Hutchison is likely to get the Farm Bureau endorsement. While comments on blogs are hardly reliable sources, I find this one credible because (1) a Republican consultant told me
The Hutchison campaign’s Joe Pounder criticized Perry yesterday for getting his facts mixed up over how much Texas gets from the feds from the federal gasoline tax money it sends to Washington. Here’s what Pounder wrote: Rick Perry and his campaign are confused. They are so eager to launch negative
An unsigned editorial in today’s Midland Reporter-Telegram expresses concern that the $12 billion in stimulus funds that were used to balance the budget “might some day come back to haunt us.” The paper was alerted to the danger by “a recent report to Midlanders from Tom Craddick, our
This headline from a press release from the Perry campaign caught my attention: Kay Bailout Express delivers more earmarks, fails to protect landowners The first part of the release attacks Hutchison for voting for the Department of Interior's appropriations bill: Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison today continued her 16-year tradition of
Chris Cillizza, author of “The Fix,” the Washington Post’s politics blog, criticized Rick Perry last week for suggesting that Hutchison might not run: Perry, during a sit-down with a dozen or so Washington-based reporters late last week, said that although Hutchison has already announced her candidacy, he is
"Things are seldom what they seem. Skim milk masquerades as cream." --Gilbert and Sullivan A reputable GOP consultant who is not engaged with either gubernatorial campaign has concluded after looking at the crosstabs of the Rasmussen poll that the poll's conclusion that Hutchison is leading by Perry by 2 points
From the Hutchison campaign, 23 September: Instead Of Cutting Spending, Rick Perry Balanced The Budget Through $12.1 Billion In Federal Stimulus Funds. “With little debate, the Texas House passed its largest budget ever Friday, a day after senators also breezed through the $182.3 billion plan for the next two years.
Houston’s KHOU broke the story. A commenter sent the audiotape, which I listened to. Here is what I heard on the audiotape. After Perry asks, “Are we in one?” — referring to a recession — and the laughter, Perry says: But seriously, the fact is that because we
The liberal Democratic blog Huffington Post assailed Rick Perry today, devoting a full page to his foibles. It won’t affect the Republican gubernatorial primary, though, since no R’s read Huffington Post. Various unflattering photos of Perry appear on the Web site. Here are the topics: –“Rick Perry admits,
I haven’t previously paid much attention to the candidacy of Debra Medina, of Wharton, for the Republican nomination for governor, but when the Rasmussen poll shows Hutchison ahead of Perry by 2% and Medina gets 3%, perhaps it’s time to pay attention. This race is fertile ground for a wild-card
“Collin Watcher,” a reader, posted a comment to the article, “Let them eat chili,” about the video of Rick Perry speaking to a Houston business group, in which Perry refers to a report that Texas will be the first state to come out of the recession, and then jokes, Are
This is the YouTube link for Perry’s comments yesterday about Texas being recession-proof before an audience of business leaders in Houston. * * * * Here is the transcript of what Perry said: “Why is Texas kind of recession-proof, if you will? As a matter of fact, just
Hutchison 40%, Perry 38%. This is a stunning development. Hutchison was down 46-36 in July and had a poor rollout of her campaign in August. What accounts for the turnaround? 1. Overconfidence and misjudgments in the Perry camp. I have had a number of conversations with Perry supporters,
From the Hutchison daily e-mail: Hutchison also has taken issue with Perry taking credit for Texas’ ability to weather the economic storm that has depleted other states’ coffers. Hutchison admitted that Texas is doing better than other states in the slow economy. “The reason we are doing better is that
The Hutchison campaign is doing a better job of having a daily presence—it couldn’t have done a worse job—but it is still too reminiscent of a high school debate approach. By that I mean the campaign is trying to attack here and probe for a weakness there without developing the
Two more reasons why Dewhurst decided to announce that he is running for reelection: (1) I am told by two sources that he called Hutchison to ask about her plans — was she going to resign her seat and if so, when — and he did not like the answer
Dewhurst’s decision to announce for lieutenant governor has touched off intense speculation about whether this is a final decision or a keep-my-options-open decision. Dewhurst has always wanted to be governor, and so I think his plan is to succeed Perry upon his retirement in January 2019. But seriously, folks …